Dr. Ursula Probst (she/her) is a social and cultural anthropologist whose work critically examines the gendered, sexualised and racialised dimensions of labour migration and migrant health care in Europe, with a particular focus on European East-West inequalities. Drawing on queerfeminist materialist and postcolonial approaches, her research centres the body and embodied experiences as a vantage point for analysing the material and affective effects of structural inequalities in contemporary Europe. She has conducted extensive ethnographic research with migrant sex workers in Berlin, which resulted in multiple publications, including the monograph Prekäre Freizügigkeiten [Precarious Freedoms]. Since 2020, she has been teaching ethnographic methods and anthropological approaches to gender, sexuality and health, as well as supervising BA and MA students at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she works as a research associate in the international research project ‘Mobility Regimes of Pandemic Preparedness and Response: The Case of Covid-19’ at FU Berlin, in which she investigates the long-term affective and embodied effects of Covid-19 regulations on mobile essential workers in Germany. Beyond her academic work, her research has contributed to advocacy for improving access to health care for migrant workers in Germany.

Summer term 2025
(Global) Health and Mobility (MA)
Institut of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

Summer term 2022
Introduction to Medical Anthropology (MA)
Institut of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

Winter term 2021/22
Anthropologies of Neoliberalism (BA)
Institut of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

Summer term 2021
BA Übung/tutorial: Methods of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

Winter term 2020/21
Sexual Economies (BA) 
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

Summer term 2020
BA Übung/tutorial: Methods of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin

• Migration, commercial sex and (Eastern) European bodies in Berlin (2016-ongoing)
  PhD research project, supervisors: Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dilger, Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka
  From 2017-2020 funded by the Elsa-Neumann-Scholarship of the state of Berlin
  In my dissertation research I am analyzing the everyday (work) lives of people from Eastern European countries who are engaged in sex work in Berlin. The investigation of the diverse realities of Eastern European migrants in Berlin as well as the polarized discussions about “Eastern European prostitutes” in Germany highlight stark contradictions between an idea of Europe and specifically the European Union ensuring equal rights to all its citizens and an in everyday practices racialized and sexualized understanding of Europe which not only defines itself in opposition to non-European “Others”, but also produces inner-European hierarchies based on regional, social or (presumed) ethnic belongings. The embodiment of (presumed) belongings and bodily practices often serve as a means for marginalization, making the issue of “Europeanization” also a question of how the embodiment of “Europe” is or can be negotiated. Building on a critical investigation of embodied (Eastern) European belongings this project focusses on the question how the negotiation of embodied notions of “Europeanness” affects the experiences and perspectives of (labor) migrants from Eastern Europe who engage in sex work in Berlin.

• Research into prostitution in Northern Ireland (2014)
  Research assistant, PI: Dr. Susann Huschke
  Funded by the Department of Justice of Northern Ireland
  The aim of the research was to provide a better understanding of the extent and characteristics of prostitution and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Northern Ireland. As a research assistant, my main task in this project was to compare and analyze different exit programs in Great Britain and other countries with different legal frameworks for sex work.

• Support services for female sex workers in Berlin (2012-2014)
  MA research project, supervisors: Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dilger, Dr. Susann Huschke
  Based on ethnographic fieldwork in this project I investigated the perspectives of female sex workers on support services available to them in Berlin. Throughout our conversations, some discrepancies emerged between the support needs of my interlocutors and the approaches of various support services. These discrepancies were based on the issue that, socially and institutionally, support needs of sex workers were mainly framed as a question of sexual health, which contributed to a neglect of other (health related) questions arising in the everyday (work) lives of the participants.

Monographs

Probst, Ursula (2023): Prekäre Freizügigkeiten. Sexarbeit im Kontext von mobilen Lebenswelten osteuropäischer Migrant*innen in Berlin. Transcript. https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6600-7 (open access)

Probst, Ursula (2015): Von käuflichem Sex, Opfern und Moral – Perspektiven von Sexarbeiterinnen auf Rechte, Sexualität und Professionalisierung im Arbeitsalltag in Berlin. Weißensee Verlag.

Special Issues

Cancelliere, Francesca and U. Probst (2021): Being There: Early Career Medical Anthrppologists’ Perspectives on Contemporary Challenges in the Field. Anthropology in Action 28(2). https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2021.280201

Journal Articles (peer-reviewed)

Lewicki, Aleksandra and U. Probst (2025): Sex, care and the working body: Ambiguities of the gendered racialisation as ‘Eastern European’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2462779

Dilger, Hansjörg, J. Geeraert, T. Goronga, L. Mair, N. Mehran, U. Probst, R. Frankfurter, V.-L. Greiwe, M. Jaeger, U. Kluge, J. Pape, J. Plummer, H. Strohmeier, L. Vonk and S. M. Holmes (2025): Grounding global health in care: connecting decoloniality and migration through racialization. Global Public Health, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2025.2480646

Probst, Ursula (2023): Health insurance for the good European citizen? Migrant sex workers‘ quests for health insurance and the moral economy of health care. Social Science and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115190

Probst, Ursula and M. Schnepf (2022): Moral Exposures, Public Appearances: Contested Presences of Non-Normative Sex in Pandemic Berlin. European Journal of Women’s Studies. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13505068221076386

Holmes, Seth, E. Castañeda, J. Geeraert, H. Castañeda, U. Probst, N. Zeldes, S. S. Willen, Y. Dibba, R. Frankfurter, A. Kveim Lie, J. F. Askjer and H. Fjeld (2021): Deservingness: migration and health in social context. BMJ Global Health 6(Suppl 1):e005107. https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/Suppl_1/e005107

Probst, Ursula (2020): Vielschichtige Lebenswelten, komplexe Vulnerabilitäten. Zur Lebens- und Arbeitssituation der Frauen am Straßenstrich im Berliner Kurfürstenkiez. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung 33(04): 193-203. https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-1284-8806

Book Chapters

Probst, Ursula (2023): Gewalt in der Sexarbeit: Zur Notwendigkeit intersektionaler Perspektiven auf ein umkämpftes Themenfeld. In: von Auer, Katja, C. Micus-Loos, S. Schäfer und K. Schrader (Hg.): Intersektionalität und Gewalt. Verwundbarkeiten von marginalisierten Gruppen und Personen sichtbar machen. Unrast.

Other Publications

Probst, Ursula (2023): Sich (nicht) kaputt machen. Blog Post im Rahmen der Produktion Happy Nights am Theater Bremen.

Probst, Ursula (2022): Sexarbeit und Krankenversicherung: Zugangshürden und strukturelle Probleme. In: Sexarbeit. Realitäten, Identitäten und Empowerment. Deutsche Aidshilfe.

Schnepf, Max and Probst, Ursula (2020): Thinking Sex in Times of Corona: A Conversation. Somatosphere.

Probst, Ursula, K. Buchner and M. Schnepf (2018): Creative Methods and Participatory Arts Research in Medical Anthropology – Conference Report of the 9th MAYS Meeting. Blog Medizinethnologie.

Probst, Ursula (2015): Stigma, Moral und Zwangsmaßnahmen. Gesundheitsversorgung für Sexarbeiterinnen? Blog Medizinethnologie.

Probst, Ursula (2015): Support for Sex Workers as Occupational Support? Research For Sex Work 15, 19-22.

Huschke, Susann, P. Shirlow, D. Schubotz, E. Ward, U. Probst and C. Ní Dhónaill (2014): Research into Prostitution in Northern Ireland. Research Report.

Selected Presentations

2025

• Sex, work and the body: Negotiating ‘Eastern Europeanness’ in Berlin. Workshop ‘Friction – Tensions, divisions and productive disruptions from gender perspectives’ of the Commission for Gender Studies and Queer Anthropology of the German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies, University of Göttingen, Germany, 19.-21.06.2025.
• with Aleksandra Lewicki: Sex, care and the working body: Ambiguities of the gendered racialisation as ‘Eastern European’. JEMS Forum Event, University of Sussex, 05.03.2025.
• Fieldwork is (not) for every body? Conference ‘Unwriting’ of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 03.-06.06.2025

2024

• ‘We have different problems now’ – An (un)successful search for the long-term effects of Covid-19 in Germany. World Anthropological Union (WAU) Congress ‘Reimagining Anthropological Knowledge: Perspectives, Practices, and Power’, Johannesburg, South Africa, 11.-15.11.2024.
• Essential, but forgotten? Mobile essential workers’ experiences with navigating pandemic regulations in Germany. University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 03.10.2024.
• Sex work and the embodiment of ‘Eastern Europeanness’ in Germany’s racialised labour market. ‘Antiosteuropäischer Rassismus. Brauchen wir eine ‘Osterweiterung’ der Rassismusdebatte?’ [Anti Eastern European racism. Do we need an ‘Eastern enlargement’ of the racism debate?], Berlin, Germany, 26.09.2024.
• Precarious freedoms. Sex work and the ambivalences of ‘European” liberties in Berlin. QueerRunde, workshop of the working group AG Gender and Sexualities | Queer Anthropology of the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 17.-18.05.2024.
• Mobility regimes of pandemic preparedness and response: The case of Covid-19. Vorläufige Ergebnisse des deutschen Teilprojekts. Workshop ‘Bedürfnisse und Wahrnehmungen von mobilen Gruppen in Deutschland während der Covid-19-Pandemie. Erkenntnisse aus einem anthropologischen Forschungsprojekt und Schlussfolgerungen für künftige Public-Health-Arbeit’, Robert-Koch-Institut, Berlin, Germany, 13.05.2024.

2023

• with Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves: Choosing silence: The ethics of things unsaid. Conference ‘Red Lines, Red Tapes: Ethical Challenges in Social Sciences and Humanities’, University of Warsaw, Poland, 30.11-02.12.2023.
• Precarious freedoms. Sex work, labour migration and European liberties between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Workshop ‘When Sex is Work: The Global Migration-Sex Work Nexus’, University of Toronto, Canada, 17.11.2023.
• with Hansjörg Dilger: Embodying Mobility Regimes: Politics and Practices Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic. Colloquium ‘Negotiating Ethics, Politics and Practices after Covid-19’ of the Institute of Anthropological Studies in Culture and History, University of Hamburg, Germany, 07.06.2023.
• Embodied negotiations of European East-West dichotomies: Migrant sex workers between belonging and exclusion in Berlin. Seminar Series ‘Transformative embodiments: Disruption, affect and empathy in minority lives’, Centre for Minorities Research, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom, 26.04.2023.
• ‘But we are all white!’ – Migrants from ‘Eastern Europe’ negotiating whiteness in and beyond the sex industry in Berlin. Nordic Summer University ‘Whiteness and racialization in/between East and West’, Roskilde University, Denmark, 28.03.2023.

2022

• Ambivalent negotiations of ‘European’ liberties in the everyday lives of sex workers from ‘Eastern Europe’ in (neo-)liberal Berlin. Conference ‘Transformation, Hope and the Commons’ of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom, 26.-29.07.2022.

2021

• „… and they do not even have health insurance!” – Uncertainties of health care for migrant sex workers in Germany, XI Medical Anthropology at Home Conference, Oktober 2021, Universität Wien
• Queering Europe: Anthropological perspectives in conversation. Conference ‘Troubling Gender: New Turbulences in the Politics of Gender in Europe’ of the Commission Gender Studies and Queer Anthropology of the German Association of Empirical Cultural Studies, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany / online, 08.-10.04.2021.

2020

• with Max Schnepf: Thinking Sex in Times of Corona: Ambivalent intimacies and future desires. Seminar Series "The politics and intersections of COVID-19: Critical perspectives from gender studies. Karlstad University, September 2020 https://sola.kau.se/covid19andgender/
• Sexualizing Europe between “East” and “West”: “Eastern European” sex workers negotiating “Europeanness” in Berlin, 16^th EASA Conference “New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe”, 20.-24. Juli 2020, University of Lisbon

 2019

• (Sex) Work for a better future? Mobilities, hopes and realties of sex workers from Central and Eastern Europe, Anthromob Workshop “Mobility and the Future of Work”, University of Barcelona, 06.-08. November 2019
• Berlin Kurfürstenstraße: Negotiating Frictions in Urban Transformation, Vortag bei der DGSKA Tagung „Das Ende der Aushandlungen?“, Universität Konstanz, 29. September-2. Oktober 2019
• Can sex work research be a practice of solidarity?, Vortrag beim IUAES 2019 Inter-Congress “World Solidarities”, Adam-Mieckiewicz-Universität Poznań, 27.-31. August 2019